Състезание за роботи в САЩ

Twenty-four robotics teams hailing from all over the world competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge with hopes of sweeping from the $3.5 million (€3.15 million) prize fund, at the Pomona Fairplex Fairgrounds in California, Friday. Each team has a robot, which they have to steer through an obstacle course simulating a disaster scenario, designed to be similar to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The robots each have an hour to complete eight tasks including: driving a vehicle, opening doors cutting through walls, and climbing stairs. Around half the teams are based in the US, with others from Japan, South Korea, Germany and Italy. Team IHMC from Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and Cali-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory's RoboSimian are among the favourites to win so far. Each team gets two tries at each course, and the winner is due to be announced after further trials on Saturday. The winners will net $2 million (€1.8 million) prize, second-place $1 million (€900,000), while the team coming in third will get $500,000 (€450,000).